Body Warmth
by obsidians
Summary: Tifa can't sleep after Cloud leaves her and Vincent holds her so she can sleep. No lemons, just cuddling. I don't know if I shall be continuing this one or not.


I don't own FF7 or its characters and make no profit writing this story.

Vincent was glad to be back home at Seventh Heaven and let himself into the silent and dark bar.

He'd been on a mission for just over a week and had been so busy he had barely slept or eaten, being modified as his body was, he could go without much of either longer then an average man but it still took a toll on him. He went directly to the kitchen and smiled into the dim light that Tifa had left him a note saying she had made food for him and he gratefully ate it. The exhausted man decided to shower and turn in for a long, much needed sleep.

He was glad when he got to his room to find his bed had been neatly made up with fresh sheets. Tifa was a wonderful woman that Vincent really appreciated having in his life as she managed the lives of those who lived under her roof with tender loving care. Making certain the two broody bachelors ate regularly and had clean clothes. She was the perfect combination of mother hen and supportive wife to them both without being too intrusive. Vincent sometimes wished Tifa was single but knew that she and Cloud were sleeping together and turned a blind eye to the fact that Cloud's room was empty and the sounds of muffled passion in the night.

Vincent paused when he heard a sobbing coming from Cloud's vacant room, the sobs were those of a woman and quickly deduced it must be Tifa and opened the door without knocking over his concern for her, something that the normally polite man would have never done. He paused to find Tifa curled up in the vacant bed.

"What's wrong?" he asked her from the doorway.

She turned a tear stained anguished face to him, "Cloud left me. I woke up and he was gone. He left a note saying he doesn't know when he's going to return" she sobbed

"Tifa you should go to sleep" Vincent suggested to her, he felt the urge to draw her into an embrace and sooth her pain but ignored this. It wasn't his place to do so.

"I can't sleep without him. I haven't slept since he…." She said and then choked off a sob. "Every night we slept together. I can't sleep in my bed without him, I can't," she sobbed.

"Come, I'll fix you a sleep draught" Vincent said as he pulled her to her feet and she allowed him to lead her to the kitchen. He pulled out what was needed while she sat down at the table as if the weight of the world was upon her shoulders.

"Are you hungry? I left you some dinner" she offered and bustled in the direction of the fridge, his human hand on her shoulder stopped her.

"I've already eaten it and I thank you, but you need some sleep" he told her.

"Vincent why did he leave me?" she pleaded as she fisted her hands into his cape.

"I don't have an answer for that" he said knowing how cold he sounded, feeling as awkward as ever.

"I love him" she said and turned from his crimson stare and rubbed her arms.

"Drink this and go to sleep" Vincent said putting both hands on her shoulder. He wasn't good at offering comfort to people, especially womenfolk. He had always been a bit of a fish out of water when it came to women. The few he had been with, he had fallen hard for and been cast aside with a bleeding wounds in his heart that took a long time to heal. And then there had been her, she had literally been his undoing and his very humanity had been taken away at her hands.

"I won't sleep; I need his arms around me to sleep. I need his body warmth to sleep." she sobbed.

"If it's just a matter of body warmth, if I slept beside you; would that help?" Vincent said before he could think what he was suggesting and he blushed.

"What?" she asked him.

"I meant just sleep. I can hold you. I know I'm not the sort to offer such things normally and….." he said spreading his arms to indicate his metal arm.

"I don't know if it will work. I would feel like I'm cheating on him" Tifa said in a contemplative voice but didn't say no.

"As your comrade and friend, I would never take advantage of you. I need to sleep, all I am offering is that you use my body to cling to in the night in place of his" Vincent said, unable to look at her. "Go put on your nightclothes while I shower and come to my room" he said as he walked from the room.

Vincent almost moaned out loud as hot water pounding on his flesh seemed to make the knots melt away as he lingered in its warm fall as it sluiced the grim from his body and made him feel almost human again. Picking up a washcloth and vanilla body scrub, he cleansed his weary body, moving carefully over the more sensitive scars he would bear all his life, scars from being little more than a lab experiment for a madman, who was also her husband. They were carved into his skin like a roadmap to disaster and made it hard for him to ever imagine baring himself to anyone. What a look of horror he would receive! To see his body so scarred, so abnormal looking would shock someone. Let alone what would happen when they looked at his left arm. The look of disgust kept him from saying yes to anyone's suggestions of intimacy between them, kissing was one thing but what about when his clothes came off and himself rendered vulnerable to ridicule? He wasn't so inhuman that he didn't crave to be touched, to be held and caressed, and to make love to someone, but he was prisoner of his own body. The same body had others inhabiting it along with him they longed to make someone bleed, demand he mate, but celibacy was all he had and memories of the single night he got to spend with her.

However, he would do as he promised to Tifa because she needed from him what he would never receive from anyone. However, he slept naked and that would be inappropriate.

Then he remembered something Cid had given to him as a gag gift and reached into a little used drawer and almost moaned with sorrow that they were there. With a sigh, he unwrapped them from their package and donned them. He looked in the mirror and cursed the man's name as he beheld himself wearing the sky blue pyjamas with the white, fluffy smiling sheep frolicking on them. Each sheep had a number on them to count. Vincent suddenly wished he could wear his leather armour to bed but that would be inappropriate. So taking a deep breath, he waited for the knock on his door and it timidly came. She walked in wearing a long practical nightgown. "Are you okay with this?" he asked her and she nodded. "Please sit down" he said, indicating towards the bed and sat down himself.

She sat beside him while both people stared right ahead looking how a pair of strangers would react to their wedding night in an arranged marriage once the wedding attire is stored away, the banquet hall swept clean and the guests gone, leaving them alone to consummate their marriage out of duty rather than love. Vincent didn't know what to do, so he took her hand in his.

"Do you always sleep in your gauntlet?" Tifa asked him with a blush.

"I normally removed it but I've slept in it before, you won't feel it" he assured her.

"Take it off, I want you to be comfortable" she said.

"No, I only take it off when I'm alone" he protested.

"Vincent, I don't know what your arm looks like underneath but it won't shock me. You said you need to sleep and it looks uncomfortable" she said. "Will you let me take it off you?" she asked him.

He clamped his hand over it against its removal; he couldn't handle the look of disgust on Tifa's face. She was one of the few women in his life he trusted, cared about and admired. She was beautiful, bold and fearless and the kindest woman he had ever met. She was the only one who fussed over him after he got home from missions, the only person who would dare give him a hug on parting and return, in private of course. Made certain he ate as he sometimes forgot to and had clean clothes. "I don't want you to see my arm" he admitted with a blush.

"If it is part of you, it doesn't scare me" she said and smiled at him in encouragement. "You don't need to hide anything from me" she assured him and he removed his hand and allowed her to draw it gently down his arm. He wasn't able to look at her to witness her look of disgust or horror. Instead he felt gentle fingers gliding along his embarrassing arm and he looked at her. She seemed a little surprised but not shocked.

"It's barely even human, I'm barely human" he said, allowing more emotion to creep into his voice then he normally would.

"Do you think after everything we have gone through and witnessed together that this would bother me?" she asked him as she caressed the purple limb and unclenched his hand to reveal the black clawed nails there. "You seem plenty human to me" she assured him.

"Sometimes it seems like it isn't even a part of me" he said.

He was shocked when she pressed the palm of his deadly hand against her cheek. "Can you feel my body warmth?" she asked him.

"Yes" he said, enjoying the texture of the woman's soft skin under his hand after so long.

"Then it's a part of you" she said giving him a gentle smile. "Vincent, what a person looks like doesn't matter if I care about them. There's room for all of you in my heart but my heart is grieving and you are offering me comfort. You have a beautiful soul, scars do not matter and neither does this" she said giving the back of his hand a kiss.

"You know about my scars?" he asked her, he had always been so careful to be fully dressed in front of her.

"I saw them once while you were changing and your door was open a bit. I wasn't trying to spy" she assured him.

"Do they disgust you?" he asked her, holding his breath an anticipation of her answer.

"No, scars happen because of life and not all of us have a great one. Have you forgotten my own from Sephiroth? Visible scars don't bother me; it's the ones that people conceal in their hearts that can hurt the most" she said and he knew she was talking about Cloud.

"Get under the covers" he suggested and turned out the lights, leaving the door open so the soft light from the hallway allowed them to see and averted his eyes when she got in and he blushed.

"Vincent" she said, holding the covers up for him to join her and he slipped in beside her and they blushed as they lay side by side.

"How do you normally sleep?" Vincent asked her.

"On my side with my head on C-his chest" she answered.

Vincent slipped his arm around her and drew her against him, swallowing hard. "I'm kind of bony" he said apologetically. But she placed her head on his breast and his slender, but powerful body felt good as she draped her arm over his chest and inhaled his clean scent, he smelled of vanilla mixed with leather and it soothed her.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked with a blush at the feeling of her slender, but curvy body pressed so intimately against his own.

"Mmmmmmm" she said drowsily. "I normally drape my leg over Cloud's thigh" she sleepily said.

"Please go ahead" he stiffly said and she did and he draped an arm around her and placed his other inhuman hand at her waist and she wiggled a bit to get more comfortable and relaxed into his embrace.

"Is there anything else?" Vincent said, as stiff as a board himself.

"He kisses me and whispers "good night darling" and strokes my hair until I fall asleep" she said looking at him in the dim light coming in from the hallway, she could have sworn he looked nervous.

Vincent swallowed hard and then rolled his head and raised it slightly and kissed a woman for the first time in over thirty years and was surprised when she angled her head so she could deepen their kiss. He was blushing furiously when his lips fell away from hers and he could feel his reaction to their kiss tenting his ludicrous pyjamas and she seemed to be blissfully unaware of this when she snuggled against him. His hand reached up and he stroked her thick, yet soft hair. "Good night darling" he whispered to her and she smiled as she drifted off to sleep. He relaxed into her embrace when their trapped body heat engulfed them and he drifted off to sleep inhaling the scent of her cherry scented shampoo.

When he woke up, his bed was empty but Tifa's scent and body warmth remained on his sheets like a lingering lover. He sat up and smelled the wonderful scent of bacon being fried and didn't even bother changing when he joined Tifa in the early morning hours as she made breakfast.

"Vincent" Tifa said feeling slightly shy but it was like she had never seen him before, really looked at him and noticed how handsome he was and his red eyes were oddly gentle.

"How did you sleep?" he asked her after he poured himself a cup of coffee.

Tifa smiled back, realizing he was still wearing his ridiculous pajamas and she wore her nightgown like they were an old married couple. "I slept just fine. Thanks to you Vincent" she said and impulsively kissed his cheek as she gave him a large plate of pancakes and bacon and he blushed, gave her a shy smile and started eating. He got a text from Rufus asking him to stop by the headquarters to update him on the status of his mission. He started to text back.

"I was wondering. Would you like to spend the day with me?" Tifa asked him.

"Just the two of us?" Vincent asked her, pausing in returning the text.

"Sure, we could just lounge around, snuggle and watch a movie and I could give you a massage later. I have vanilla massage oil" she suggested, remembering how she liked the scent on him and he blushed when he remembered how prior her being certified as a licensed massaged therapist, having their friends drop by to become guinea pigs for her as her massage table was always full of naked people covered only by towels. He had declined out of embarrassment over the idea of exposing his scarred body to her, yet desperately wished to feel her hands on him.

"I would like that" he said as he texted back that he was busy that day and would contact him in the morning and turned his PHS off.

Although Tifa was missing Cloud, she felt like another opportunity had been presented to her and she wasn't going to let this one get away. Ever.

After all, Vincent's communication skills weren't the greatest but he really got the point across when he wanted to and his heart was a barren wasteland that she longed to claim and fill.


End file.
